Marshaling Technology for Development Proceedings of a Symposium (1995) / Chapter Skim
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The Globalization of Knowledge and Technology
The Globalization of Knowledge and Technology
Pages 17-28
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From page 17... ...
These four chapters, summarizing the findings of the symposium, were drafted by Michael Greene of the National Research Council's Office of International Affairs and Kristin Hallberg of the Private Sector Development Department of the World Bank.
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From page 18... ...
Two hundred years ago, the Reverend Thomas Malthus noted that populations growing without constraint tended to increase exponentially, and he predicted that in a few generations the human population would exceed and exhaust the available food supply. That this has not yet happened is largely the result of a package of technologies known as the green revolution which has increased food production beyond any predictions, and of other technologies that have extended, found substitutes for, or protected threatened resources.
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From page 19... ...
PATHWAYS TO TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION For developed and developing countries alike, a country's ability to realize gains in knowledge-based productivity depends on its capacity to tap the global system of generation and transmission of knowledge through technology transfer, generate indigenous knowledge through research and development, put that knowledge to productive use through engineering, ensure equitable and effective use of that knowledge through social and behavioral research, and organize and diffuse information. Technology transfer the mechanism for bringing a technology from one research area of industry to another or from an advanced to a developing country and putting it into operation in its new environment and research, development, and engineering the process of conceiving or adopting a new idea, developing a technology, and adapting it for practical use are generally considered separate and distinct processes.
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From page 20... ...
Incremental innovation is a term applied primarily to relatively small improvements in existing products and processes or to relatively small extensions of the scope of existing applications of the product design or technology, which over the long term accumulate to produce major changes. Most technological innovation is of this type, and much of it takes place on the factory floor (or clinic or farm)
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From page 21... ...
Developing countries with a minimum level of basic education in their work force and minimum industrial experience may be able to capitalize on these opportunities quite successfully, often at lower cost than developed countries. This has been demonstrated many times by the success of several of the newly industrialized countries in finding niches in the computer and information technology markets.
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From page 22... ...
The evolving international standard for photonics or lightwave transmission devices such as optical fibers is called synchronous digital hierarchy or SDH. It will enable users to purchase equipment from many different vendors without worrying about compatibility, and it will This reengineering of the communications industry appears to be the next to the last step in the information revolution brought on by the invention of the transistor.
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From page 23... ...
But many of these eventually fail or merge or are bought up by larger companies because of the unexpectedly slow progress and high cost of bringing products to market. This competitive situation may prove to be a benefit for the developing countries, where biotechnology companies have begun to appear, enabling them to form strategic alliances with more technologically capable foreign companies looking for new markets.
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From page 24... ...
To meet the increased demand while natural stocks are in decline, world aquaculture production would have to increase by more than seven times. Biotechnology could play a vital role in efforts to improve captive management, promote faster reproduction of species and the production of healthier organisms, and improve the food and nutritional qualities of the organisms, including the introduction of new "crops," such as algae and seaweeds, for their nutritional properties.
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From page 25... ...
Other advanced materials are now finding application in developing countries as cost-effective replacements for earlier technologies for example, the use of shape memory alloys for affordable automatic control, amorphous silicon solar panels for roof-top power supplies, and advanced magnetic materials for small motor actuators. No major nation can avoid facing the questions associated with its semiconductor chip design and!
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From page 26... ...
TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY Even though much uncertainty still surrounds the technology revolution, one thing is highly probable: the speed of innovation in information and communications, as well as biotechnology and materials technologies, will reshape the world economy, creating new industries, changing the nature of markets and the sources of comparative advantage, lessening the importance of geographic boundaries, and changing the way business is done. Many developing countries will encounter new opportunities to increase their productivity, incomes, and participation in world trade.
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From page 27... ...
Some estimates suggest that as much as 10 percent of the 88 million service jobs in the United States could be contested by longdistance suppliers under the right set of circumstances. Industries long considered natural monopolies, such as telephone services, already have become more competitive with the entry of new service providers using new technologies such as cellular telephones.
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From page 28... ...
Effective health care is reaching populations that never before have benefited from modern medicine and is a major factor in the burgeoning population growth the world is experiencing. To encourage technological innovations, most industrialized countries have established national research and development institutions and devised systems or programs to incorporate innovations, whether domestically generated or not, into the national productive sector.
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